It started with a gift
by TheBlueBomberBoomer
Summary: After giving brick a present, butch starts to realize he has feelings for him, how will this affect them? Will he keep it secret? Contains Brick x butch Please Review
1. Gift

It was a calm night in the city of Townsville, the moon being easily viewed in the night sky, surrounded by fields of stars. Townsville was not a bad city far from it. In fact, it was only assaulted a lot from all forms of monster and beast. At one lair on a volcano rested an evil domain to one of the more well-known villains. In one of the rooms of the lair was a small bedroom. There, the bed had a red blanket resting on it, the walls had posters of various bands, and all sorts of junk were scattered on the floor. A young boy was sitting on the edge of the bed. He was just staring out the window, wearing a red shirt that had black stars on random parts of it, and a backwards red cap on his head, where under the cap was his long orange hair, its length reaching down to his lower back. He was scratched and bruised a good bit, and a bandage was on his cheek, all of which made him look like he came from a bad fight. He was Brick, the leader of the Rowdyruff Boys, a notorious trio of super-powered triplets that harassed the town whenever bored, but however, lately they had little luck entertaining themselves.

Brick was oblivious, for someone was peeking at him from his doorway while he was more interested in staring at the moon, lost in thoughts. Peeking through the door was another boy who was wearing a green coat that had a black skull on it. He had spiky black hair, and had forest green eyes which just stared at his sibling. He was Butch, a more normally aggressive boy of the trio. He looked more cut and bruised than his brother, like he had gotten the worse of it. The problem with being the aggressor and losing was that the enemy got just as brutal as he did. They had lost today, which was nothing new to them. They had tried to play a modified version of baseball where they used streetlights as bats and cars as balls, but yet before they could get far into it, the heroes of the town stepped in and saved the day as always.

Just thinking back on it made the raven haired Butch feel his blood boil. He wondered why Brick could tolerate it all the time. Every time the brothers fought a lot, sure, but he had hidden respect for the red ruff; the determination, the refusal to give up, but knowing when to back down. He was the self-proclaimed leader for a reason. And he kind of respected his brother for it. Butch had something behind his back. It was a small box that had not much on it beyond a small orange and yellow striped pattern to it.

"What's that?" Butch suddenly heard, jumping up from the startle and quickly turning around, slapping his hand over the mouth of a similarly aged boy away from the door. Butch saw the boy face to face. He had messy blonde hair and dark blue eyes, and he was wearing a blue vest that had black thunderbolts on random patterns and angles on it. The blonde was his other brother, Boomer, the not-so-smart one of the group. He was bullied a bit by his brothers for his intelligence, but he wasn't that bad. Usually he treated their injuries. He looked the least injured of the group, but his hands sure showed signs that he had done his best in the fight. Butch took his hand away once he stayed quiet.

"It's a… a present…" Butch reluctantly admitted.

"Oh, cool. Are you going to open it?" Boomer asked quietly, aware of the signal that he didn't want their leader to hear. His brother seemed hesitant while tapping his fingers on the box. He took in a deep breath like he was paranoid of whatever was inside would compromise his tough guy appearance, though his age already did that enough.

"It's not for me… I made- bought! I bought this for brick," Butch corrected himself, and like expected, his blonde sibling's look was a surprised one. They walked a little further down the hall so their brother wouldn't hear. Boomer had a smug smile on his face, recalling all of the fighting the brothers had done today against their enemies and with one another.

"And you said we weigh you down," Boomer hummed mockingly at one of the many insults that had been thrown around from hours ago. Butch looked slightly guilty. Clearly he was not in the mood to put on his usual act. He looked back at the door, the hall being poorly lit. He tapped his brother's chest.

"If you even try anything…" Butch tried to start warning his brother.

"I think it's a great thing. I hate you two fighting so much. I really get tired hearing it that it practically hurts my ears. Maybe this'll make you two like each other for a little," Boomer interrupted, aware the fighting was more or less ruining their cooperation and coordination in fights, so they were at a major disadvantage no matter what they did. Butch smiled, thankful for his remark, though he was still nervous, so obvious that even his thick skulled brother could tell.

"Go on. It'll be fine," Boomer reassured before he wandered off to get to his own activities. Butch walked to Brick's room. He tapped lightly on the door, ready to present the gift, going off the hope that it will go well. If it didn't make them forgive each other, they would at least feel neutral with one another, or that was what he wanted to believe.


	2. Locket

Brick looked at his brother, seeing him standing in the doorway shortly after he knocked. The two waited for one other to first break the ice. The red ruff was wondering if Butch was here to continue the past argument, though seeing him hiding something behind his back was worrisome. The black haired ruff coughed.

"Mind if I come in?" Butch asked.

"Yeah, sure. Just keep it down… I got a headache…" Brick requested, expecting either a mouthful of anger or his brother's usual uproar at some excitement to break the boredom. Butch sat beside his brother. He was hesitant, as he just took in a deep breath, remembering what Boomer had told him earlier before he had attempted to enter the room. He pulled the present from behind his back and presented it to his brother.

"Here," Butch simply said. Brick raised an eyebrow, taking it from him. He was a little surprised, wondering if this really was a gift from him, or if he was forced to make an apology in some form. He undid the ribbon on top of it, watching it fall off before he pried the lid off and rested it aside. He was confused by what it was. He pulled it out a small chain like a necklace. Attached to the chain was a circle shaped piece of wood that had shown to have been smoothed like with sandpaper.

"What is it?" Brick attempted to query, but he saw that it could be opened. He did just that, and when he opened it, he realized that it was a locket. Inside the wooden locket were pictures of his brothers. Both looked happier than ever, clearly taken from an older photo, since Butch's hair was a lot smoother and Boomer looked actually competent. He easily recognized the photos age. It was taken by their only living parent, only maybe half a day after he had created them. The photo was more of a reminder of their first victory against their enemies. Things had really gone downhill since then, or so that was what they felt like.

"…wow…" Brick didn't really know what to say. A gift was a gift. Normally he would call it crummy or some other form of word like that, but he wasn't in the mood to bully. Sibling's emotions were a thing the ruffs preferred to hide. They usually just hit each other instead or did their own things to try and calm down, though when angry, people did a lot of things they regretted for some reason. Ever since the argument, Butch had been feeling bad. His brothers didn't mind, since it was normal, but he felt like he had gone way over the line.

"I bought it for you," Butch stated, acting like it was a two dollar throwaway that would be found in a cheap store for tourists, though Brick was the self-proclaimed leader for a reason. He was more impulsive with plans than his siblings, but didn't excel at much more than that in terms of strategizing, but he knew his brother more than anyone.

"You're horrible at lying. Yeah, it's made of oak, but it wasn't made in a factory. You used your heat vision to make this," Brick declared. Oak was the most common material used in the town. The Oak Hollow Mall, Pokey Oaks' schools, pretty much the majority of trees around the city of Townsville were oak.

"W-what? How can you tell?" Butch stammered, continuing to claim profusely that it was bought.

"Because, it's got a small burn mark right here," Brick hummed, pointing to the right part of its back. He was happy with the gift, but because it was hand made by his brother, it made him wonder if he really cared so much over one of a regular dozen arguments. The green ruff pouted, giving up.

"Yes, I made it! Can you at least act happy with it before you throw it out the window?" Butch requested, expecting some comment about being a girl for making a gift like this with his own powers. Him caring about the gift more made Brick confused. He looked at the pictures in the locket. With a smile, a reaction from looking over the sweet picture, he wrapped an arm around his sibling and pulled him closer.

"It's great. Thanks, man," Brick declared before he slipped the necklace over his head, letting it dangle on his chest. Normally he hated wearing jewellery, but this was more personal attire like his hat. He had to pull his long hair out of the back of the necklace, but it was still worth it. Butch didn't know how to feel about his response. He had expected an insult, and not an embracive partial hug. He assumed he must have a really bad headache to be acting this nice.

"Um… t-thanks, Brick…" Butch's heart was racing as he spoke. Brick pulled away, looking down at the wooden locket. He didn't mind wearing it. He would keep it on him like a war veteran would his dog tags. He would make it last for a lifetime. They heard a light tap at the door once again that drew their full attention off each other and onto the blonde ruff.

"Sorry to bug you, guys. Dad wants us to gather in his build room," Boomer chimed. Brick got up excitedly.

"Alright! C'mon, Butch," Brick insisted before darting out of the room with Boomer. Butch took a moment to catch up. He stood up and walked to follow. He was lost in his thoughts more, wondering what made him feel like that. He felt like he was about to have a heart attack through half of that conversation. He was embarrassed and shy when he should have been just able to say, shut up and take the gift. He finally got to the 'build' room, a room full of scrap metal and somewhat built robots, some of which were destroyed and in shards, since their enemies pretty much ruined anything their dad made.

"Good! You're here to see my new invention…"


	3. Confused

The three brothers saw their creator and technical father standing before them. He was a monkey that had a big brain covered by a glass dome. He was dawning a blue outfit that had a cape flowing to the floor. He was their original creator, but after they had died, they had become the children to another evil known as HIM. Unfortunately, once their enemies had killed HIM, and they had to come back to their creator inevitably. He didn't care and he held no grudge against them. He was Mojo Jojo, a somewhat infamous villain in Townsville. He built big machines or devices out of determination to beat the heroes of the town. However, he had been on a failure streak lately, so bad that he hadn't even equated the Rowdyruff Boys into many of his last couple of plans. The boys were hoping this would be a change.

"What is it dad?" Brick had to ask, looking over a weird small room that was now his 'build room' junk shop. It was more like recycling broken down robots to new ones to be broken again. Their father at least seemed happy today which was good. He was usually either shrieking to himself in fits of rage or quietly making plans.

"I need you kids to run an errand for me. I need something stolen," Mojo simply said. Butch and Boomer looked at each other. They were already battered and bruised from this morning. They weren't in the mood to add a midnight beating on top of that. Their leader didn't seem any happier with the theory, either, though Butch was more preoccupied in his thoughts, his attention going back to Brick. The necklace put them on a lot better terms than he expected. He was trying to find out why he felt so weird inside. He was starting to hurt his head at this rate.

"Fine. Just what is it?" Butch requested him to cut to the point, not in the mood to hear the plan ramble before the objective to steal. Worst case scenario, if they all get knocked out, they just wake up in a jail, breaking out to meet back up at home and to get berated from their father again for not being able to win.

"I want you to steal some special computer chips for me. A military convoy is escorting them in an armored truck through main street in an hour," Mojo explained what he wanted; a simple smash and grab steal. It was gonna be kind of hard to get through, but they could handle it. They just had to throw aside the escort vehicles, or else steal the armored truck and throw it somewhere inescapable. They would decide when they got to that.

"Alright. Let's go do it then," Brick agreed, ready to go off to handle it, but they were stopped by their father chiming in.

"Ah, wait. You can already guess the Powerpuff Girls will be able to react fast. So one of you needs to distract them," he continued. It didn't sound like that bad of a plan, but it sounded like someone was going to wind up in the slammer tonight. The ruffs all looked amongst each other. Butch thought maybe spending some time alone was better. He couldn't think straight around Brick for some reason. He could just blow something up then run so the puffs would have to handle the mess.

"I'll do it," Butch opted in.

"I'm not complaining," Boomer sighed in relief. Normally, he was thrown to jobs similar to that in any way, but usually for his brothers to escape. With it agreed, they all flew through the ceiling, leaving separate trails of light behind them that matched their colours; dark red, deep blue, and forest green respectively.

Butch didn't mind flying to the other side of Townsville. The night air breezed through his hair and the moon illuminated the area around. It all offered at least a relaxing atmosphere to him. His mind was not on the distraction as much of his odd emotions. Currently the only plan he had in mind was to blow up the first building he saw and hope that more than just the fire department got called in to handle it. He hated having to probably go out of his way to get spotted since he and his brothers were wanted criminals, easily recognizable all around the city.

Butch landed in an alley to one of many factories in the area. Normally for the factories, it was mostly scrapyards. The city of Townsville had a lot of destruction occur on a regular basis that processing debris was a necessity. Butch took a few steps out of the alley, seeing the street lights glowing over the sidewalks. The green ruff was doing his best to focus on the task at hand, trying to find the best building to destroy. There was a lot of options, and inevitably he knew he would have to damage more than just one.

"Huh… what was that?" Butch wondered, hearing the sound of a loud scream echo through the air, ruining his train of thought. He planned to ignore it, leaning back on the wall and trying to remember what his plan was, but then he heard the screams wail the air again, except in more unison by multiple people, Butch growled getting annoyed, his brain getting rattled just by that sound.

"What is with all the noise?!" he shouted, coming out from the alley, but he went silent. His eyes focused on an odd form of monster. He could see the tons of civilians running away from the big monster itself. It was big in size, at least five times bigger than he was. It had big eyes and jagged teeth that were solely used just to eat things. Butch glared at it as it turned away from him to focus on the civilians. It wanted the big crowd instead of just one kid. Butch reached down and picked up the nearest rock he could find, throwing it straight at the monster. The rock bounced off the back of its head with great force and a clunk. He now had gained its attention.

"Hey, rex! I can't think straight with you roaring and making these idiots scream!" Butch shouted in rage. It was feeling more bottled up than just his emotions going crazy. He watched the huge jawed monster reach over, pick up a small car and put it in its mouth, easily biting it in half and chomping it into even tinier bits. It spit out a ball of scrap metal at the black haired boy. He stood his ground, his eyes glowing red before firing a ray of heat vision that melted it easily.

"Gonna have to do better than that," Butch growled before he flew into the air. This was gaining the attention of a lot of the civilians. They didn't know whether to be afraid that a Rowdyruff was about to fight a monster, or happy that someone was playing hero. He darted at the monster, leaving a trail of light behind him. He slammed into its stomach hard enough to knock it off its feet. Butch fired his heat vision again to add onto the knock back, sending it flying down the road, tearing up the asphalt beneath it as it began to crash and slide.

"And stay down!" he mocked. The monster's claws sank into the road. It ripped up a good sized boulder, which it threw straight at the ruff. Butch got hit out of the air. The old injuries from earlier this morning just made him ache even more. He gritted his teeth in contact with a building. He recovered slightly, forcing his legs to the ground. He didn't care one bit about the pain. He was really mad. Once he got his footing back, he had the boulder in his arms, just dropping it on the ground before flying back outside to the fight.

"Now you've asked for it!" Butch shouted, darting by one of the many street lights, grabbing it and tearing it out of the ground easily. He clubbed the monster in the head hard enough to knock out one of its many teeth. He swung it overhead, smacking it to the ground again. Butch just continued using the streetlight like a blunt object. Each hit just drew out more and more of the monster's oddly dark colored blood. A lot of things attacked this city, and the Ruffs always enjoyed watching them smash it up, but this one had gotten under his skin badly.

Butch was panting by the time he stopped bludgeoning in the monster, just dropping the streetlight. He looked at the monster, whose head was practically mush, and its teeth were in little shards. He was left floating there. It took him a minute to register the sound of cheering from the civilians. He had beaten a monster, one that he could have ignored and let do the distracting for the plan. He realized it all fully, rubbing his head. He began to fly off to leave the scene of the fight.

"What did I do…?"


	4. Puff Advice

The monster lay in defeat. The townsfolk were safe, for now. Three streaks of light could be seen in the air, being light pink, light blue and light green respectively. When the lights touched down to the ground, three girls had appeared. They were the Powerpuff Girls, a set of triplet girls that were known as the town heroes. Usually they cleaned up any monster or huge catastrophe that was too big for others to handle. They all were confused by what they seen. They had been woken up by a phone call from emergency services reporting of the monster, though it was already long dead. Its head was clearly bashed in, and the whole body lay motionless on the ground.

"Whoa… what happened?" one of the girls spoke up. She had black hair that went down to her shoulders, and she was in a green coat that had black vine like patterns on it in random angles. This looked like something she would do. She was Buttercup, the more hot-headed one of the three that packed a punch in battle.

"I don't know, Buttercup. Maybe we could ask these people?" the other girl suggested. She had blonde hair, but it was done up to have two short pigtails. She was wearing a blue dress that had black circles covering it. She was Bubbles, the shyer of the three. She didn't look like it, but she could put up as much of a fight as her sisters. Bubbles wasn't enjoying the sight. All the goop it had for blood pooling around it was making her kind of sick, and it smelt rotten already.

"That's a good idea. Buttercup, can you ask some of them what happened? Me and Bubbles will clear the corpse," their leader declared. She had long straight orange hair with a red bow in it. She was wearing a pink shirt that had black flowers on random parts of it. They didn't see much of a point in doing anything else beyond melt the body so the city wouldn't have to worry about the clean-up. Buttercup nodded, reluctantly agreeing to it. To her, this was a waste of time. Someone saved them ten minutes in a fight. It didn't matter to her who killed it, but she knew whoever did it might come back to bother them later on. Buttercup approached the first person in sight which was a skinny man that had a goatee, looking to be most in his early twenties, perhaps a college student out late.

"Hey, any clue what happened here?" she started her practical interrogation. If he didn't give a straight answer, it would be brutalized out of him. She was already tired out of her skull, and being held up late for another few hours because someone couldn't remember specific details was not how she wanted to waste her night. The man just scratched his goatee.

"Yeah, like, some crazy guy threw a rock at it, and before we knew it, he had turned its face into mush. It ate my car though," he stated, Buttercup seeing the half eaten machine. The man sure seemed happy that the car was destroyed, probably insurance payout for a new one. She didn't care about that part, though.

"Well, that girl was recording," the man added, pointing to a woman that was near a bus stop. She looked pretty dolled up in a black shirt and a lot of makeup on her hair, being in a more fluffy state. The green puff ignored the goatee man from there on to see if she could get a sneak peak at the recording, though she felt like she could recognize the woman.

"Don't I know you?" Buttercup started, gaining the woman's attention. She had been looking at her cellphone, which was one of those new model flip ones. Clearly she had money to spend since it was expensive, just one of the many things aside from the jewellery that exclaimed that on her body.

"Oh, I'm Ana Smith, the news reporter for Channel 38. It's nice to meet you. Is there something you need?" Ana introduced herself. Buttercup remembered her better now. So many of her school mates talked about the reporter half the time, and it only got annoying to her just to hear ramblings about her over and over.

"Yeah. You recorded the fight, right? Can I see it?" the raven haired puff requested. Ana didn't mind, handing over the phone to her before hitting a button. It looked like she had only got part of the fight where the monster was having its head bashed in. Her eyes focused on the person wielding the street light that had been used.

"…Butch?" she muttered, her eyebrow quirked. He didn't look happy in the slightest in the recording. She watched the video reach the end where Butch had flown away. She looked at the direction he had went down. She returned the phone to the news anchor before she flew off, leaving her sisters to clean up the monster. Buttercup was heading down the same path Butch had went through. All she knew was that he had went to the end of the road and then left. The Powerpuff kept flying until she found a hard crack in the pavement, which was a good few miles away from the monster's corpse.

Buttercup knew how she got when upset. She either went somewhere private on her own but even she had a minor trail of destruction. The landing was a sign that someone wanted to land in a hurry. It led in front of an abandoned apartment complex that had windows that were broken in pieces. It looked uninhabitable from her view. She headed inside, able to see easily in the dark. Her eyes had well-adjusted by now to the nocturnal vision. She could see a few good damaged parts of the wall from something other than age. Her ears very soon caught the sound of weak sobs.

"Hello?" Buttercup called out as she grew close to where they came from, which was the stairwell that led upstairs. On the stairwell laid Butch, whose tears somewhat ran down his cheeks like a river. He looked at her, wiping his eyes, but he just couldn't stop those practically everlasting tears.

"W-what are you doing here, you dumb puff…?" Butch half-heartedly insulted. Buttercup had heard better insults from the ruffs this morning. She hated hitting an opponent that hadn't attempted to start a fight with her yet, and he already looked bad enough from this morning. She approached him.

"Are you okay?" the puff questioned, aware that ruffs rarely let their emotions get this bad. He stayed quiet, looking at the ground. His heart ached badly.

"Why do you care?" he responded. Buttercup sat down beside him, trying to act calm, though if he even raised a finger toward her, she would have him through the wall in a split second.

"Bubbles still hopes you guys will become good one of these days. I tell her she's crazy, but I never thought I'd see you crying or saving people, either," Buttercup claimed. Blind hope always annoyed her. She preferred not having her hopes high to avoid being disappointed, but sometimes she couldn't help herself.

"…I-I can't think straight… I've been feeling so strange around someone, and I can't stop thinking about them… and then… th-that monster… it wouldn't shut up…" Butch sniffled and sobbed. He had stammered out what was wrong with little effort. It was making her feel awkward, hearing him cry so hard that it reminded her of when her sister Bubbles' favourite toy wound up in pieces from the washer.

"Look, Butch, it's nothing bad. It sounds like you just have a crush on them," Buttercup said, running a hand along his back reassuringly. She was starting to grow suspicious, though the fight from the morning earlier had felt too easy. She was wondering who he was referring to.

"I-I can't… my family would hate me. Dad's already mad at us for losing all the time…" Butch choked out. She was aware Mojo wouldn't be happy with the news that his child had murdered a monster that was practically on the ruffs' side. He was calming down a tiny bit now. She made him look at her in the eye.

"Look. Whatever happens, it'll be a hundred times worse than what happens if you stay quiet. If you tell, you'll feel a lot better," Buttercup warned him what would happen if he kept bottling it up. She was suspicious of who he was talking about. It was one of the ruff enemies, she assumed that much from how worried he was over it. She had a thought in the back of her head poking away. It made her ask herself if he was talking about her. He took in a deep breath and exhaled, trying to calm down.

"Yeah… I guess… Thanks," Butch thanked her, finding it an awkward bonding moment. Him having a crush on Brick. He didn't want to know how he would react, but he really hated feeling like he was going insane. He got up and began to head toward the way out.

"The only reason I'm gonna pretend you weren't here is because you killed the monster. Now go before I change my mind," Buttercup insisted, treating this like they were even beyond the awkward moment they had together. Butch smiled before he flew off to the sky, thinking it was time to head home, hoping his brothers had done their job. He had distracted the puffs, in a way he had not planned at all. But now he was feeling a lot more at emotional peace, though mentally, he pondered how he was going to tell Brick. A crush was a crush, but it didn't even seem remotely like he was able to get over the feelings.

**Authors note: I don't know if I should update this still or not, but updates might be a bit slowed down. Either way I hope you're enjoying this.**


	5. Admittance

Butch was tired, the day had already been forced to go out longer from what he assumed. It was probably nearing 1am, only one hour after midnight. He didn't care though. He was more thinking back on Buttercup's advice. He couldn't even think back when this crush started. And who knew. Maybe it had been buried under all the troubles the ruffs had been having lately. Butch was relieved to arrive home, coming in through the window like always. He had heard enough shouting from their father about breaking the ceiling last month, and he didn't want to hear it again.

"Dad, I'm back!" the ruff called out as he entered the living room, a big room dedicated to nothing more than lounging and planning, it was nothing special. It had a television in it that was decently sized, two chairs and a couch, a coffee table centred in the middle. He saw Mojo Jojo on the couch, asleep. Clearly he had either gotten tired working or waiting. Either way, Butch presumed his brothers weren't home yet from their half of the task they had been stuck with.

"I need to get some sleep…" Butch told himself, not hesitating to head for his room, though halfway he saw his reflection in one of the windows that stopped him in his tracks. He saw a long cut across his cheek that was on top of one of his many bruises. He groaned in annoyance, for he hadn't noticed it until now. The rock he had caught in that fight with the monster had probably caused the cut.

"We're back!" he heard the familiar voice of Boomer chime, sounding pretty happy, all things considered, for being kept up late. The black haired boy decided to see how things turned out, though when he got back to the living room, he could see that things did seem to go smoothly as planned. Brick was resting a black briefcase on the table so their dad could find it first thing in the morning.

"So how'd it go?" Butch attempted to query. They both looked gleeful and no worse damaged than when they first left.

"Oh man, it was great. They had a tank even escorting the truck, and Brick twisted its barrel and it blew up when it tried to fire!" Boomer quickly spoke while they left the room so not to wake Mojo. Brick just shrugged.

"It wasn't anything special," he nonchalantly brushed it off, though clearly enjoying his ego being brushed. Everything that had been escorting that armoured truck was in shards or thrown far away, by the time the Powerpuff Girls even heard what happened. They would be far too late. It was the first victory in a while for a mission for the ruffs.

"You did a good job distracting them. Guess it's my turn to treat the injuries though," Brick complimented. Boomer had handled their last five injury treatments. He was not in the mood to argue just to get him to do something. He just wanted to treat his injuries and go to bed. Butch didn't mind. He was probably the worst in the group when it came to treating injuries. Brick was looking at Butch's hands. Butch hadn't even noticed, but the palms of his hands looked like they had been cut up a lot. He hated when things were thrown at him. Whether he caught it or broke it, his hands were going to hurt no matter what.

"Alright, goodnight," Boomer bid them goodnight before leaving to his room, the sound of his door closing and locking behind him. He didn't feel safe sleeping at night with his door unlocked. He had been going through too many pranks a week, though if they were that bored, it was easy to break in. Butch had been dragged off to his orange haired brother's room. He didn't complain, being left to sit on the bed, staring at his hands, just thinking. He didn't want to cower out. He already had one mental breakdown, and in front of a Powerpuff Girl. He hated to imagine if he became weak for ignoring his feelings.

"How'd you distract the puffs anyway?" Brick questioned while coming to him, holding a small first aid kit that was the most they got for medical help. If it got really bad, just one simple hospital break in and they had all the medicine they needed. Pretty much anything they wanted they could steal at the risk of being assaulted. Thankfully, none of them had been that desperately sick.

"There was a monster… I pretty much made it mad and let it rampage," Butch lied. There was a monster, truth spoken, but it was dead now. Whether he did it or not, why should his leader care. As long as it worked, he wasn't going to admit to weeping over him. Butch had a tiny smile on his face, as he saw the same locket around Brick's neck, the exact one he had given him. He was happy that he hadn't thrown it away immediately.

"Well, good work… least you didn't get hurt that bad," Brick stated while pouring some disinfectant on the raven haired ruff's palms. It burnt a lot, but the pain settled after a short time before it got applied to the cut on his cheek. The day he tolerated it the worst was the time his entire back got scratched up from being dragged across a roof once.

"Um… you know I didn't mean what I said in our fight, right? About weighing me down and that junk…" Butch started, his voice shaky. At least he came off apologetic over it. His brother was confused, wondering if this was him voicing the apology instead of just letting the locket do it for him.

"Yeah. You'd be long dead without me," Brick joked. The late night was really graining on his mind. He couldn't think of anything snarky to retort with while wrapping the green ruff's hands with gauze.

"Y-yeah… I would, and… I want to know what do you think of me?" Butch continued acknowledging the likeliness that he should be dead by now. Even if he still had Boomer, their leader kept them together. Him being this self-conscious was a discrepancy from his usual personality for sure. Brick took a seat beside him on the bed.

"You and Boomer are the only brothers I'd ever want. I don't care if either of you want me dead. I'm never going to abandon either of you. We already died once…" Brick lost his train of thought at the memory of them dying. He stared down at the locket. He felt his sibling's embrace as Butch's arms wrapped around him, his eyes closed out of fear of the reaction.

"…what's going on, Butch? You've been acting… nice… like, really soft," Brick pointed out. He didn't mind the reassurance that he wasn't hated. Butch felt the long orange hair on his hands while he hugged him. It was soft, for being mostly messy.

"I-I know… and I probably look crazy… I care for you a lot… and I mean… more th-than just a brother… a-a lot more…!" Butch stammered out. Fear was taking him over at this rate. He was worried more about speaking coherently, let alone what was on his mind and heart at the same time. His forest green eyes met Brick's blazing dark red eyes. Silence took over as Brick processed what he had just heard for a few seconds.

Brick did look shocked. He was processing it the best he could, hoping for confirmation of his mind breaking.

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he hesitantly queried. Butch looked scared, even his eyes showed it. He didn't want to beat around the bush anymore.

"Ye-yeah… I love you Brick…" Butch simply spat out, almost like it had taken all the air from his lungs to force the first part out. Brick looked to the ceiling, Butch burying his face in his brother's red shirt.

"I-I don't know why I feel like this… and Brick… I'm so, so sor…" Butch got cut off midway. Before he could even attempt to apologize, he was returned by the tight hug to match his own.

"You really feel this way… alright," Brick nodded.

"W-what?" Butch was lost.

"I know how you feel about me. I'll at least give it a try," Brick agreed to at least attempt a relationship. Butch slowly grew a smile across his face, though one big thing lingered in their thoughts. Should they inform their father or brother about this testy romance?

"Should we tell Boomer, at least?" Brick wandered his thoughts while he was beginning to lay down on his pillow, tired. Their father probably was a poor idea to tell in general.

"If it goes wrong… it'll be better if we just hate each other without him knowing why," Butch pointed out the highs and lows of telling him. He was thick, but he could still pick up on signals, probably best left secret. The green ruff was about to leave, but before he could, his wrist got grabbed.

"How about you spend the night with me? In case your wounds, y'know, get worse…" Brick subtly offered. Butch didn't even hesitate before resting beside him. The pillows were a lot fluffier than he was used to. Although Butch was used to sleeping on the floor a lot, he was happy, just wanting to enjoy the night with him, hoping that this 'test' would go well.


	6. Aftermath

Butch was beginning to wake up. His eyes slowly opened. He tried to move but realized that he was resting his head on Brick's chest, one of his arms wrapped around his green dressed body. Butch felt calm. It was the first time in a while that he could sleep well while injured. Normally the bruises ached and throbbed when he tried to sleep, though that might be the fact that his bed had springs sticking out everywhere. Butch didn't know whether to move or not. He didn't want to wake brick up, but he knew questions would be asked if he got seen like this. He stood up from bed without waking the red ruff, and he made his way to the hallway and headed to the living room to check and see if their dad had even awoken as predicted. He was nowhere in sight as well as the briefcase that was on the table. Butch didn't care. As long as the monkey wasn't ranting and raving, he was happy. Butch sat down on the couch to rest.

"Morning, Butch," he heard, looking over to see his blonde brother approaching with his usual breakfast of cereal. He looked a lot better than yesterday since most of the bruises had started to go away.

"Hey, Boomer. Dad okay?" Butch responded while Boomer took a seat beside him to enjoy his breakfast, though the blonde ruff seemed bored, just waiting and hoping one of his siblings would come up with something fun to do today.

"He ran off to the build room the second he saw the case. I just can't wait to see what he builds to be broken next," Boomer joked. They always liked seeing the robot before it got smashed anyway. They were usually pretty cool to them. Metallic behemoths or small in design, ready to smash half the town. Sadly, they always are built hastily, and they get left hearing their angry father.

"I think you were on the newspaper though," Boomer added. Butch raised an eyebrow.

"I'm what?" the green ruff asked. He didn't know how to feel surely about it, assuming it to be some photo of the three of them doing one of a million vandal like things like they have always done for entertainment.

"Yeah. I didn't get around to reading it though…" the boy in blue grabbed it from the nearby table and handed it to his sibling, letting him skim the pages to find the article on him that had been printed today. Butch froze when he saw it. The picture was of him hitting that monster last night with a street light. The headline of the article read as followed, 'Ruff hero saves part of town'. His eyes glowed red before he burnt the newspaper to ash with his heat vision. Boomer didn't care to try and look deeper into it. One newspaper was as boring as the next, all full of junk to him.

"I think it's your turn to pick what we do today," Boomer claimed. Usually they went in an order of suggestions, though they often jumped on the first idea since they all ended in being beaten up by the puffs. They got annoyed imagining it, but a few seconds of fun are still fun. Butch just pouted, with no idea what to do today. He scratched his head, trying to think, now that he wasn't having his mind being ruined by his emotional issues.

"Could go to the junkyard and make statues from the scrap. You always make good ones anyway," Butch recommended. Boomer found this odd. Normally he hated doing that and it wasn't really illegal. If anything, half of it got stolen by hipster artists who would claim it as their own. The ruffs had seen a few of them around town and melted them.

"Are you okay, Butch? You aren't sick, are you? You haven't insulted me yet, and now you want to do something you hate," Boomer attempted to query, wondering if him being sick was making him act weird. It was making him afraid that he was being set up for some kind of prank from his other brothers. Butch just shrugged.

"Just can't think of anything. I'm gonna go see what dad's building. You decide on what to do today," the green ruff insisted before leaving to go to the build room. He was curious to see what those stolen computer chips were being put into. Boomer put his cereal down in case it was part of a prank, though so far there were no signs of that.

When Butch got to the build room, he could see his dad welding away at a robot that was at least quarter done at best, but like always, was a rushed weak robot, just now with stolen military chips that he didn't even want to know why his dad needed them for.

"Dad! What are you building?" Butch shouted so he could hear over the welding tool. The monkey stopped and turned it off before he stepped down from the very tall ladder. Clearly he had been building this from the moment he woke up. It looked so far like the regular build of the robots.

"I'd prefer to keep it a surprise. So, I saw something interesting on the TV…" Mojo started while looking over one of a dozen blueprints. His green son stayed quiet while seeing his father pace around like he was planning a form of berating. It for once made him afraid since normally his dad was angry no matter what.

"It was of you saving part of the city from a monster. Mind explaining yourself?" Mojo requested. At least he was acting calm, though it could just be from how tired he was feeling. Working late on machines always did that. His son gulped nervously.

"I… thought the best way to distract the puffs would be with not more destruction… but, y'know, finding out what killed the monster like a puzzle," Butch lied. Saying it aloud did sound like a good plan already, making a mental note for later if he ever had to distract them again. Investigating a dead monster that they didn't defeat always would take longer than just simply killing it. Sadly for him, his father didn't buy it.

"I saw you on television bashing it to mush… you only do that when upset. I can't have one of my children letting their feelings get in the way of crimes. If something could've aided us, I do not want it destroyed," Mojo growled. Ideas, suggestions, theories, it should have been brought up to him before executed, and he could tell when his children were upset. That footage well showed the green ruff in a full outrage more so than usual.

"Well I'm sorry. I was having a bad day," Butch apologized, barely caring for the conversation.

"That is no excuse!" Mojo screeched, startling him like the lies were rattling his nerves annoyingly.

"I want you to leave. And I don't want to see you until you get this under control," the monkey said without even considering it for a second. He flipped his welding mask back down and walked away. Butch just stared. He finally talked to Brick on his feelings, and the morning after, he was getting thrown out. He doubted there would be any chance of him being let back into the home. He should feel mad, but for some reason, it was empty anger.

"F-fine. Have fun with your dumb robot," Butch growled, though before he walked away, he kicked one of the only built legs of the robot hard enough to make it collapse and smash in the wall. That was satisfying to him. He headed back upstairs to leave his father just standing on the ladder, holding the still burning blowtorch like his anger had looped around to the point he lost his mind. Butch was going to do what he was ordered. There was no point in brutalizing someone if it won't change their over sized brain's decisions.


	7. Anger

Brick was beginning to waken up. He had slept in a little late, but he still felt tired for some reason. However, something was amiss. The green ruff was no longer in bed. He assumed that his brother had already woke up. The orange haired boy didn't know how to feel so far. He felt not bad, but quite great, in fact, though he didn't want to give full credit of his feelings to his brother. It was merely a test for now. He was not in the mood to start a morning off by going partially insane over someone. Brick made his way out of his room and peeked into Butch's room. It was empty, and there was a lot of junk scattered around the floor, and his bed seeming like it had been stolen from a dump that he somehow had tolerated all these months. Brick made his way to the living room, finding Boomer just resting on the couch, trying to think of activities they could do for today.

"Hey, Boomer. You seen Butch anywhere?" Brick asked, gaining the attention of his brother who snapped out of his train of thought. He pointed toward their usual exit, one of the many windows, when they cared enough to use them instead of just breaking through the roof.

"I dunno what happened. He and dad got into a fight and he left. Plus I'm supposed to come up with what we do today," Boomer summarized what he could tell, presuming the green ruff had left to blow off steam since he had been weird today. It was more reassuring than anything to the blonde ruff.

"Alright. Thanks," Brick nodded, leaving him to his thoughts, hoping he would pick for something decently fun to him. He decided to see what the fight was about, heading to the build room. His gaze was brought over to the wall where one of the robotic legs laid within it, having easily broken the wall into rubble. He saw his father sitting at the bottom of his tall ladder, rubbing his forehead, having obtained a migraine in the minor time, trying to process how to fix everything if he could or not.

"Hey, dad. What happened with Butch?" Brick tried to inquire about why the two of them fought. It was nothing new. Bickering and arguing was normal everyday life for them. His father closed his toolbox.

"I told him to go," Mojo answered while carrying the toolbox to his workbench which was covered in blueprints that varied from age and scale. Sometimes he reused the old plans, but added a tweak or two to try and spice up the idea. His orange haired son didn't quite understand what he meant.

"What do you mean?" Brick hesitantly continued, assuming he just told him to get out to calm down both of them so they could move on from the argument.

"He saved the town last night from a monster, when you two were off robbing the chips. I told him we don't need someone weak and that he wasn't staying with us anymore," Mojo Jojo summarized what happened. It was silence from there. Brick had to process it for a minute.

"You threw him out… for killing one of a dozen brainless monsters?" Brick repeated, shaking his head. He had known Butch was losing his mind practically from last night. The red ruff looked down at the wooden locket he had dangling around his neck. He felt guilty, wondering if he had been oblivious this long. He felt a slowly rising rage burning inside him.

"We do crap for you every day, and that's what happens? One screw up and he's out?" Brick growled, not even getting his father to turn around to face him. He just kept idly scribbling on a new blueprint.

"One mistake? You boys mess up a lot. I can forgive a lot, but being like that is something I can't forgive," he declared. Before he knew it, he felt a tight tugging sensation. He couldn't react in time. Brick had grabbed him by his cape and thrown him over shoulder. Mojo Jojo plopped onto the floor like a ragdoll before he got kicked in the stomach. To the monkey, the kick felt as strong as a horse, a feeling he only got whenever the Powerpuff Girls had engaged with him in a fight that he most of the time lost. He realized Brick was standing there, looking mad. Clearly this had struck a few good nerves hard enough to make him flip his lid.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Mojo screeched, wondering why his boys were acting so much more rebellious recently.

"I should be asking you that!" Brick insisted before picking his father up and slamming him against the wall. Super strength always made things easier to him. He never expected he would have to snap like this though.

"We do everything you ask for, and it's not good enough. It's never good enough! I'm tired of this! You can get your brain handed to you by the Powerpuffs for all I care! The next time you go to jail get injured or need something stolen, don't expect us to do it!" Brick roared, throwing his creator aside. Mojo laid there on his back before the red ruff showed the pictures that were held in the locket.

"These are the brothers I love and protect! We used to be happy- You were happy too! We did nothing but help and you kept getting worse and worse, even though all your hunks of metal are as worthless as you are!" he finished, panting, leaving Mojo lying there in a small amount of fear. Brick closed the wooden locket, being nothing but honest about loving his brothers, even if his feelings with Butch got stronger. He went back upstairs, where Boomer was standing at the doorway, having been listening in on the fight.

"We're leaving…" Brick simply said, having burnt out his anger and frustration on his father.

"…Okay…" Boomer didn't argue. He heard everything, so it was good option to follow his brother. The two went to grab their things, the few possessions they cared about, before they left the home, Brick just hoping they wouldn't have to set foot back there again.


	8. Leaving

Butch had no clue what to do. He was wandering, trying to think, though he did his best to keep his route, mostly in back alleys and such so he wouldn't hear people either praising him for what he did last night, or calling the cops in fear of causing another street war. He hated getting shot, because handgun ammunition bounced off his thick skin easily, but it still hurt a lot. He was wondering why he wasn't mad over it. He was just saddened. Normally if something like this happened, he would destroy tons of buildings just to try and fill the empty rage inside. He had no plan. All he had were a few items from his home, his reputation either ruined or improved dramatically for saving the town that one night.

"Maybe I could just go for Citiesville. New life there. No one would really know who I am," Butch muttered to himself. They had a lack of super powered beings in Citiesville, though the city that was a while away from Townsville did have a few issues with superheroes. He didn't care though. He wasn't a hero. The more he thought on it, the more fun it sounded to the green ruff, a new city, meaning an entirely new environment, maybe more things to rob, steal and destroy. This plan was sounding good to him. Suddenly his thoughts were cut short when he saw some lights in the sky, a red streak of light and a dark blue light close by it.

"Brick? Boomer?" Butch wondered if they were looking for him. He thought about Brick, and it only began to annoy him. These feelings were tough for him to deal with. He couldn't leave without at least giving his brothers the proper goodbye. He darted to the sky, leaving a dark green streak of light behind him in an attempt to catch up.

Butch had followed the streaks of light at his top speed, though it seemed like they weren't going anywhere specific. He felt afraid to call to them, wondering if they were turned against him like their father had done. The green ruff was more confused behind why they were carrying bags. The two of them looked packed, the same way they would if they got stuck on a very late night mission. He decided being cowardly was probably a poor person's choice.

"Hey, guys!" Butch shouted at the top of his voice, immediately gaining their attention. The two of them came to a screeching halt in the air.

"Butch! There you are," Brick said in relief, glad he hadn't gotten far at least. His brother's forest green eyes looked guilty, staring towards Brick, seeing the locket still being worn by him. No one appeared angry so far. The orange haired ruff hugged him, happy to see him safe and sound.

"What are you guys doing?" Butch queried, breaking their embrace.

"We were looking for you," Boomer said. He didn't know what he could add to the conversation to describe what had went down between their father and their leader.

"Why? Dad send you to drag me back?" Butch growled, annoyed at the thought of the two of them being ordered to bring him back for some forced apology junk, but he noticed an awkward tone of depression amongst them.

"Are you nuts? No way. We left after I beat dad to the floor. The ruffs aren't splitting up, no matter what. I mean, we didn't come back from death just to be slaves to a monkey, right?" Brick joked, patting him on the back. They had left home, now on their own will, and it seemed like none of them were allowed back in now after Mojo's beating. Butch felt joyful instead of saddened. Even if they were keeping it a secret from Boomer, he was relieved to be with him once again, though they were only together as a test to see if it worked. They sure had done a lot for one another already.

"So what do we do now, guys? We're homeless kids, pretty much wanted everywhere in town," Boomer chimed in, reminding them of their criminal record that ranged from attempted manslaughter to major destruction of property, though most of the murder attempts were accidents from their attempts to entertain themselves.

"I was thinking on that. We could go to Citiesville. It might not be that good, but it's the best option I can think of," the raven haired ruff suggested, his forest green eyes meeting with Brick's blazing red ones. He pondered on it for a second, but it did sound simpler.

"Alright, guess it's our easiest option. We just gotta be careful and make sure we don't screw up," the orange haired ruff considered it done. Before long the three were flying through the sky. The early morning sun was beaming down on them as they flew. It was easy to exit Townsville, and its landscape just became a big figure behind them. They doubted they would return anytime soon. Equally they enjoyed the idea that Mojo Jojo was old news to them. Not only that, he had lost a major factor of his power without them.

"You really beat up dad for me?" Butch had to ask again. That wooden locket really had started them on an odd path in life, but he didn't mind.

"Yeah… for you. That and because that chimp had struck my last nerve. But again, mostly you," Brick nodded. Just thinking back on it made him angry. The flight was silent, their streaks of light still behind them, but it hadn't taken long for them to pass by a sign that read, 'Citiesville, 10 Miles Ahead'. The ruffs were glad to know it wasn't much longer to get there, and after another half hour of flying, there it was. The big city had come into sight.

"Whoa! Stop and land," Brick ordered. The two listened and descended to the ground quickly, Boomer presuming he knew why.

"We need to lay down some ground rules. We don't go berserk and draw attention to ourselves. Got it? We'll find some way to have fun, but we're really just digging our own graves causing nothing but mass destruction," Brick exclaimed, not wanting them to get the Powerpuff Girls called on them. They knew those girls would fly this far just to catch them, and they never had any hesitation when it came to an emergency call.

"Cheers to a new start?" Boomer offered his palm in a high five, wanting to see if this was worth celebrating over, or writing off as a horrible memory. Butch just shrugged.

"Let's make the most of it," their leader nodded, before the three continued forth, entering into the city on foot.


	9. Truth

It had been three months since the Rowdyruff Boys had vanished from Townsville after the huge disagreement with their father. Citiesville was a pretty calm town. The law enforcement did seem to have its grip on defending the city a lot better than Townsville did from the monsters, but they still had their occasional big issue that was out of control. Currently, the city was being pelted by a heavy storm, the sound of thunder rattling the sky.

At one apartment complex, the sound of an alarm ringing could be heard before the sound of a devastating smash, followed by the whine of the electronic dying by Butch's fist. He was lying on a bed that looked pretty much stolen from a dump in a smaller room that didn't have anything to it beyond the television and some of his junk that he had gathered before he and his brothers left their father's. One thing hanging on the wall by a push pin however was an article from a newspaper clipping. The headline read, "Mojo Jojo looking to face life in prison. May actually serve sentence?" It was an old article taken only about a week after the triplets had vanished from Townsville, the picture showing the Powerpuff Girls triumphant over their father's failure of a machine like usual. Just now, he didn't have an emergency escape plan from jail. Butch always loved seeing that article in the morning, to see what their father had coming to him.

Butch heard a light tapping sound. Looking at his doorway, he saw Brick standing there. That wooden locket still dangled around his neck. He had taken care of it preciously. In fact, after a month of attempting to date, the two had decided to no longer treat it like a test. They couldn't be happier, even if they were in a glorified slums that required brute force to get work for.

"Done with your nap?" Brick joked, seeing the green ruff roll his eyes. The boy in red pretty much worked as a guard for hire, mostly at clubs, but sometimes people hired him, too, and he made sure they were protected well. He hated how erratic it made his time schedule though.

"Yeah. You know how I get, using my heat vision that much I practically black out," Butch retorted. His job was pretty much helping fix damages like a glorified construction worker, though he did kind of use his super powers. He always did a great job so far, and no one had caught onto his presence beyond his boss and co-workers. The ruff leader came over, sitting beside Butch and wrapping an arm around him, making him blush. Butch put his hand on his brother's. The embrace felt nice. It always made him relax, like someone had taken any rage he had out of him upon contact with Brick.

"Yeah. Stick to using your fists more. You got worse energy control than boomer," the red ruff laughed. Butch didn't like being called weak. He did pack a stronger punch with his fists than his own powers. He silenced Brick's laughter with a kiss. It was nothing more than a simple peck, but it made him freeze up fast.

"Where is Boomer, by the way?" Butch questioned nonchalantly. Brick was not used to the kissing yet, but whenever there was a fight between them privately, the green ruff had an ace up his sleeve. They still had kept it secret from their blonde brother, mostly out of fear on how he would react to this. They had been recently more trying to decide when to tell him.

"Wh-what? …oh, h-he should be home soon," Brick was blushing. Butch smiled before his gaze looked away. His thoughts were getting distracted.

"Should we tell him?" Butch spoke his thoughts.

"Tell him what? About us?" Brick raised an eyebrow, aware they had not informed boomer of anything. In fact, he had been getting more suspicious due to the fact they didn't fight much anymore. It was odd, more than ever the brothers had been getting along in more ways than one, for the green and red ruff anyway, glad they had decided to forget their dad from their life.

"He's dumb, sure… I mean we haven't even called him an idiot in a long while. He'll figure it out anyway. Isn't it better we tell him?" Butch responded. It was more of a guilt feeling to him. If they were going to continue surviving on their own, they would have to be honest, anyway. Entertaining themselves wasn't hard. Citiesville did offer a lot of activities that they didn't mind. The orange haired boy rubbed his head. It was nice to have cooperation, affection and a kind of calm life. He didn't want their relationship to ruin it all. They practically slept in the same room anyway with how often the two were together.

"Yeah… you're right" he agreed with Butch. It was probably best to tell their brother next time they saw him. Just then, they heard the front door open.

"I'm home!" Boomer's voice rung out. The two looked at one another.

"Come on. May as well get it outta the way," Brick muttered shyly. The two got up and decided to head to the living room to greet their brother. The blonde boy was looking dirty, with black grease stains on him like he had been working a bit harder than usual today. He was working on a scrapyard, helping destroy the vehicles when the machine couldn't. That was the only reason his boss didn't call the authorities on him, for how strong he was and how useful he was.

"Hey, Boomer, we need to talk," Brick requested. Butch though stayed quiet. The living room was decent in size, but with furniture that looked also stolen from a junkyard, one couch and two regular chairs around a coffee table.

"Alright… what's up?" Boomer asked while sitting down. He seemed happy, since no one insulting his intelligence so often was a great change to him. Usually, when he was requested to a sitting with both of his siblings, it was a family meeting.

"Did Butch here ever tell you why he killed that monster months back?" Brick began, aware that they had gave him only the reason why they left their father's shortly after he had kicked the raven haired boy out over killing one monster, even though he lied about using it as a distraction.

"To make the Puffs waste more time looking than fighting?" the blonde boy spoke the first thing that came to mind looking to his green brother.

"Well, I kind of… more that I had a mental snap and couldn't think straight because of Brick…" Butch explained more, confusing the blue eyed boy already. This conversation had lost him a lot already.

"Why? Was it because of a fight?"

"No… it was because I cared for him a lot… I mean, I love him," Butch didn't hesitate to confess. He only gained an odd stare from Boomer who looked back and forth between them.

"Yeah, that's normal… he's-" Boomer got cut off.

"Love as in more than, that is kind of why we have been… more 'friendly' with each other," Brick intervened mid-sentence. The awkward silence took over from there while he processed this through his head.

"So… you two are in love with each other?" Boomer repeated. He received nods from both of the couple. His grease covered hands rubbed his forehead, a semi migraine coming on from putting so much together and realizing how it made sense.

"Well… you two aren't fighting and actually are happy. I'm not getting insulted every five minutes and dad isn't screaming at us and we've actually gone longer than a week without a bad bruise. I guess that's good?" Boomer spoke his mind, finding it in some extent good. He didn't want to go against them anyway, even if he exclaimed displeasure in the thought of this, they'd probably wind up ignoring him like their ears had filters to specific voices.

"Really? Oh, that's just great!" Butch sighed in relief.

"We knew you'd understand… tell ya what. Why don't I get us something to eat to celebrate?" Brick offered. They both didn't mind the idea.

"Sounds good," Boomer hummed glad that the three of them could still get along. But before they could do anything, they heard a loud rumble followed by the shaking of the floor.


	10. Monster fight

The Rowdyruffs wondered what that rumble was that had just shook their floor after the short family meeting. Butch opened the blinds to view out the window. It didn't take much to see what had done it; an oversized scale covered monster that was pretty huge in size, bigger than a lot of buildings in display outside.

"Look at that… it's another monster…" Butch rolled his eyes, not able to really care, planning on ignoring it. Brick and Boomer came to the window, hearing it let out a roar that hurt their ears slightly. The green ruff began to walk away, letting his two brothers keep staring. It was always fun to watch the monsters until they got stomped. The monster smashed a building with one of its huge limbs. The rubble went flying in the air toward their apartment and over the neighbourhood. Brick's eyes widened, seeing one of the bigger pieces of debris coming right at them.

"Look out!" Brick shouted, shoving Boomer to the ground away from the window before darting to butch and tackling him to the floor. The sounds of crashing and crunching bellowed, and various materials broke in the building while being crushed underneath the heavy rubble. Everything had went dark then.

Butch groaned, lying flat on his back. Everything was pitch black. Everything hurt. It wasn't the first time a building had collapsed on him or around him. He just wished it was anywhere but their home. He was aching though, especially his right arm. He couldn't move it for some reason. Normally it had the strength to just shove the rubble off, but he couldn't do it with only one free hand. He didn't have to remain under the debris long before hearing the sound of it getting smashed aside or pulled away. Eventually the huge part of rock on top of him was removed to reveal a slightly bruised and scratched Brick and Boomer.

"Oh man…" Brick gasped. Butch had a metal rod sticking through his arm, which was pinned to the floor, pierced in the confusion, despite his red love's best attempt to protect him.

"Butch! Are you okay?!" Boomer asked, rushing over he was going to try and rip it out, but the black haired boy stopped him.

"I-I'm fine… thanks for warning me, Brick," Butch groaned out. He was thankful, for if it wasn't for the red ruff, the injury could have been even worse. It was upsetting to their red-capped leader as he got on his knees and hugged him, the wooden locket dangling from his neck, partially damaged. Butch did his best to return the embrace with one arm. His other arm was now hurting more and more by the second. Boomer could still see the monster, and it was rampaging one building after another, being smashed up in chunks.

"Let's go smash it," Brick growled angrily. He stood up, Boomer nodding. It got personal when their home got destroyed, let alone when one of the ruffs got hurt.

"Don't mess with that pipe, Butch," Boomer insisted to him. There was nothing good that was going to come for messing with the thing impaling him to the ground. He had no idea what it had hit. All he knew was the black haired boy was definitely going to be aching. With that, the two flew out toward the monster, leaving dark blue and red streaks of light behind them. They watched the beast raise its arm up and smash another building to pieces. The sound of screaming filled the air, citizens being panicked easily.

"Hey, ugly!" Brick shouted while flying around its head, the huge eyes gazing on him like he was a fly. Before the monster could do anything, Boomer crashed into the back of its head with a strong kick, but the only result was the blue ruff's leg to ache immensely.

"Ow! What- are these scales steel?!" he groaned. Being distracted was a bad thing, he got grabbed by the scaled beast's hand. It attempted to crush the blonde boy in its claws, but he used his super strength to push back the claws, to keep safe and stop their crushing force. Brick darted at the monster in rage, slamming into its chest hard enough to make it go back a few steps, letting his brother go. His head and arms hurting from the tackle. The monster stomped on the ground, letting out a loud roar.

Butch was watching the best he could from where he was lying, seeing his brothers' streaks of lights flying around the enemies head. He hated feeling worthless. It always made him guilty. It had been a while since he had this feeling, empty pity like someone had siphoned all his energy and emotion out of him.

"Eat this!" Boomer shouted, firing his heat vision at the monster's left eye. It instantly blinded it, causing a searing burn to it. Before he knew it, the beast's hands smashed together with him in the center, like a gnat being crushed. The next moment, he fell unconscious and began to fall from the sky.

"Boomer!" Brick couldn't react before the beast swatted at him, next claw colliding overhead, crashing Brick into an office building's side. The claw stopped mid-way. However, the second floor of the building didn't collapse. The orange haired boy had gotten his footing and was glaring intensely at the now one-eyed monster, but it certainly took a lot of his strength to stop it. Brick saw the wall to his left get smashed the monster's claw, shredding it nearby and attempting to rip into him. He flew out of the way, watching the building collapse after him. Quickly, he did a mighty uppercut to the monster, knocking out one of its sharp fangs that crashed into the ground.

Boomer groaned, holding his head. It throbbed from the pain. He had some blood running down the side of his forehead. He ignored it, seeing the red ruff just firing constant heat vision in a futile effort to do some damage to the beast. The blonde ruff saw the monster's fang lying nearby. He had an idea pop up his mind. He grabbed it and began to fly high into the air.

Brick got grabbed by the monster, getting crushed in its grip. He was drained, not able to counter it as he felt his body ache from the great physical pressure being put into him. He saw the blue streak in the sky, coming in from straight above, practically at the speed of sound.

"Incoming!" Boomer cried, shortly before ramming the monsters tooth straight into its own head, piercing its scales easily with the momentum and strength of the collision. It let Brick go as it began to fall over, flopping down onto the city road.

"Whoa… that was awesome…" Brick panted while they floated there. Boomer had some purple blood covering his hands from the fatal blow.

"It felt good, really," Boomer admitted, glad they had beaten it, even if it had taken a lot more aggressive measure. The two didn't hesitate to head back to what was left of their apartment, to the ruins of where they left the green ruff who had not moved.

"Oh man… are you okay?" Butch asked, annoyed they didn't let him help on the fight. Boomer wiped some of the blood off his head, but realized it was more than he expected.

"Yeah… it was easy," Brick brushed it off, finding it nice he was worried about them while he was pinned to the ground. He had a new series of bruises and scars all over his body.

"What are we going to do?" Boomer queried what to do with the pipe that was pinning Butch down. Before they could think, Brick fired his heat vision, cutting the bottom part of the pipe straight off.

"We're taking him to the hospital," Brick decided without any protest. He picked up Butch who had the rest of the iron rod impaled in his arm. Boomer didn't want to argue, thinking maybe it was best to stay silent. They flew off to get him to the hospital now that the monster was deceased.


	11. Return home

It hadn't taken long for the Rowdyruff Boys to arrive to the hospital. Brick found himself sitting by Butch's bed. His boyfriend's arm was bandaged up heavily from surgery, though attaching his wrist to the bedside was a handcuff due to the hospital having him in the criminal database. It wasn't hard to identify them, unfortunately enough. Brick and Boomer kept their disguised appearance up, aware the green boy could break it easily or they could for him if they had to. He was currently heavily medicated, and the surgery itself had taken a while. That pipe hadn't done too serious damage, but he was probably going be in a lot of pain for a while.

"What are we going to do now, Brick? We lost our home… again," Boomer's voice trailed off, upset. He looked hurt, both emotionally and physically. Brick did his best to hide his worry, looking at the scratched and partially chipped locket he had, opening it to look at the pictures to try and calm down from the memories.

"We'll think of something. We always do" the red ruff proclaimed, not hearing any disagreements. They had to do a lot to force their way into that apartment, through shady actions and brute force. He was hoping they could find somewhere else to do similar, too. Silence continued to take over. The blonde ruff had an odd thought crossing his mind.

"Did that monster seem kind of… familiar?" Boomer asked. Brick just shook his head.

"Nope. No clue…" he sighed, his focus more being on the green ruff that was still slumbering. The monster had tough scales like metal and it took one of its own fangs to be killed by them. It had done catastrophic damage though to part of Citiesville.

"It was like something dad would make… y'know, trying to just make something big. Except this one didn't have some pathetic weakness," Boomer pointed out. Their dad had created a few monsters before. Whenever he did, it was always more of a failed genetic experiment. He always wanted big bulky behemoths for fighting the Powerpuffs.

"If that was true, he'd set that thing off in Townsville instead. And he's still in jail. He had no way to get out," Brick reminded that Mojo was still imprisoned in one of the better security prisons, but villains in Townsville always found some way to escape every time. They normally were the ones who busted their dad out of jail. This didn't stop his brother's thought process.

"He's had no way to get out a lot. I mean he could've just made more of us…" Boomer theorized. Anything was possible with their dad and making super powered children wasn't the hardest thing to create to a highly intelligent monkey. Brick scratched his head, getting more and more agitated by the second, imagining it. He would kill off any second rate clones that were created.

"He's an idiot, but still smart enough to know not to make the same mistake…" Brick claimed. Boomer knew this was a whole new level of depression hitting him. If he was considering themselves to be a mistake, intentional or not, he hated to hear Brick feeling like this.

"Let's go then. We can check on dad and if he isn't there, we'll do the Puffs' job for them and catch him, with a few extra bruises for us," the blue ruff offered.

"And if he is there?" Brick quirked.

"Then we still at least get to punch him in the brain or gut," he hummed in reassurance. Either way there was going to be fists involved. They both could do with letting off some steam right now. Brick took a minute to decide, but he nodded, agreeing that it was time to check up on Mojo Jojo. He pulled his locket off from around his neck, and he leaned over and put it on Butch. Once he had the locket on, Brick kissed him before turning around to head out with Boomer, though the boy in blue still had to get used to seeing romantic sights like that from them. The two flew out the window, leaving red and blue streaks of light behind them. They were equally determined to find out if Mojo had done this deed.

The flight had only taken a few hours for the two. They had nothing to say to one another. Silence was the only thing around. The two currently they could see Townsville coming into sight. Boomer had noticed one thing in particular, though. It was a subtle aura radiating off the ruff leader himself, but rage that felt like someone was going to die horribly. Boomer was terrified just by imagining it. He didn't want to be the one to get him angrier right now, yet he doubted he could, no matter what. They continued to fly slightly lower to head straight for their old home.

"What are we doing brick? Weren't we going to see dad in jail?" Boomer tried to get more information as they flew toward the old villain's lair they used to live in.

"I'm not going to go to a place populated by cops for that idiot. We're gonna just check and see if there's any evidence he has busted out at home first," Brick simply stated. He didn't want to be wanted for murdering his own father, but he couldn't fathom any other thought process outside of a violent one if they saw each other. Though as they entered into the lair, they could already tell something was different. The place was dusty. The lights, when turned, on revealed the layer of dust that had taken over everything. It was a mess, as random items were scattered everywhere.

"It's been ransacked. It's normal though. We didn't bust him out this time so they actually came and looked through the place," the blue boy reminded that the police had most likely raided their old home. The ruff leader headed downstairs toward the build room. His brother keeping close behind him. It was bringing back bad memories to a few months ago, none of which calmed the orange haired boy down at all. When they arrived, they could see where most of the ransacking occurred. Every mechanical scrap and shard was gone that used to fill most of the build room.

Brick went over to the nearby computer, the only thing that was left. He assumed the lethal robotic parts probably took priority to the police. He turned on the computer. To their father, it was the easiest thing to make. He rubbed his head not seeing anything of interest on the desktop or in any of the files he was browsing through beyond plans, either that had failed already or weren't even finished yet. Boomer was still looking around the area. He noticed a bunch of rats in one area. One quick flash of his heat vision and they scattered. He then saw what they had been nibbling on.

"Uh, Brick?" he called out, getting his leader's attention.

"What?" Brick came over, seeing what it was. It looked like one of the scales from the monster they had just fought, but now it was like melted meat for some reason, even though the rats had eaten away at most of it. The scale seemed to be healing back to its original oval shape fast.

"Guess this means we know what dad's been up to…"


	12. Kidnapping

Brick and Boomer just found themselves pondering the next step of what to do. They had unfortunately confirmed their father's escape from prison, not only by a bit of online search on the computer, but by the dinosaur scale that regenerated apparently when damaged. Boomer was holding it, trying to wrap his head around how it worked.

"Soft enough that rats can bite through it… why was the monster so tough?" the blonde boy had to wonder aloud. His leader looked more in a confused emotional state between upset and anger both flooding his mind simultaneously, trying to think on what to do. There wasn't many options available. With Butch's arm injured with muscle damage like the doctors had told them, he wasn't going to be reliable to head to anywhere farther away.

"Probably because it had a million of those things on top of one another…" Brick spoke the first theory he could come up with. A giant monster covered in a ton of quick healing scales was threatening until they killed it. Boomer used his heat vision, melting the scale easily, and watched its jellified form plop to the floor. This time it didn't reform. He was interested, to say the least, but the monster was dead, and at the rate this was going, their father was going to wind up like it.

"What do we do, Brick? And why would he send that monster on Citiesville? No way a monster that big was burnt out to rob a place," Boomer claimed, trying to put his mind to full use, even if it made him sound dumb in comparison. Sometimes dumb comments lead to brilliant ideas. The red eyes of his leader gazed at the floor.

"I think he wanted to draw us out…" Brick suggested.

"What? He already loses to the Puffs. Why bait us out?" his brother retorted.

"I don't know. He hasn't made enough of a mess for the Powerpuffs to waste time tracking him-…" the orange haired boy's voice trailed off, and his eyes seemed to get overwhelmed in worry. He began to dash upstairs, leaving a red streak of light behind him. Boomer quickly followed in an attempt to keep up. Before he knew it they were out of their old home and flying high above the sky.

"What's going on, Brick?! Slow down!" Boomer yelled, wondering what had got him so panicked for he was going so fast that it was hard to keep up.

"It's Butch! We left him alone! Dad tricked us! He knows where we are!" the red ruff explained their father, more than aware of how his children were when it came to revenge. It was a distraction setup to grab the boy that got weakened the most, and unfortunately Butch was unlucky enough to be the one. The blonde boy realized this, trying his best to keep up with his leader's speed.

At the hospital, Butch was awake, lying in bed. He looked at his bandaged arm, feeling dumb for getting hurt that badly. His other hand was resting on the locket Brick left him. It brought back memories, bad and good, how he almost went insane over his life and fears, feeling calmed and relaxed the more he thought about the last few months. Suddenly, he heard a loud crash shortly thereafter.

"Oh no… not another monster?" the raven haired boy groaned, feeling the floor shake. He stood up, breaking the handcuff holding him to the bed with ease as he approached the window. He didn't see any huge beast demolishing this side of town. He felt relieved, before another crash echoed followed by a scream from the hallway. He noticed that the guard assigned to his room was gone. He took a peek into the hall, noticing a weird metallic suit roaming. The over sized head gave away who it was.

"Dad? What are you doing here?!" Butch demanded an answer, seeing the nurses and doctors running in fear, multiple guards lying unconscious after having failed to attack the heavily armored monkey. The suit is clearly some new invention of his.

"Oh, just coming to check up on my son… and to bring him to my new home!" Mojo laughed. His son glared at him, ready to fight, though this armor or whatever he was dawning was certainly new. He was not sure what it did entirely, but he assumed it was something strong if the monkey had courage enough to fight the super powered boy.

"Yeah, sure… like I'm going to even let you get away with all your limbs!" Butch threatened. He heard his father's laugh. His threats were empty as he waved a metallic hand.

"Come on, then. I'll let you get the first punch," Mojo offered, his smug grin viewable through that visor. The green ruff lunged from down the hall, colliding with the metal monkey, throwing his full strength behind his one armed punch. His knuckles ached just from the collision. His father went maybe a few inches back from the force. Butch fell on one knee, groaning. His knuckles, as he could see, burned red, a slight bit of blood pouring from it. He didn't even leave a dent on the metal suit.

"Good try," Mojo joked, pulling back and taking a swing at him, knocking Butch down the hall, sending him flying far enough to slam into the wall. His arm throbbed in pain. He was really at a disadvantage, weaker than yesterday, due to a chunk of his muscle being damaged. He also had painkillers and other various drugs flowing through his body at the moment. He was maybe half his strength at best, and that suit his father was dawning seemed to increase his own strength by tenfold. Butch hated these times where it came down to trying to be smarter to have a chance to win. Butch punched his arm through the wall and ripped out the first blunt object his hand gripped which was a lead pipe.

"Tell me, how'd you get out of jail?" Butch questioned before using his heat vision on the pipe, melting the end of it into a sharp point, super heating it simultaneously.

"Simply put, I kept a bomb under my helmet," the monkey said while approaching. When he got close, the green ruff jabbed forward with the quickly fashioned spear. His father caught it with his metal glove. It had burnt into the palm of his hand though, making him jerk away, but before Butch could do anything, he got punched in the head again, getting knocked to the floor. He had no time to react as Mojo grabbed his head and slammed it against the floor, repeating the motion over and over, until at last, Butch gave out and fell unconscious.

"You'll be a lot happier after my experiment…" Mojo grabbed him by the leg, beginning to drag him away like a ragdoll.


	13. Split up

Butch groaned, his head throbbing, feeling like he had been stomped on after a long fight, though when his memory began to come back, he was aware it was anything but a long fight. In fact, it was a pathetic one where he lost to his father. He tried to move, but couldn't. His arms and legs were strapped down. As if he wasn't already ashamed of how weak he felt, there he was, lying flat on a table, his vision blurry, and his mood angered. The surrounding area was best described to him as a minor laboratory. The green ruff assumed this was an emergency lab his father made in case. He hated that he was here as a prisoner though. He saw his father nearby working on something out of his sight.

"What are you doing?" Butch asked. He wanted to put aggression behind his tone, but he was too weak. He doubted he could even fire a ray of his heat vision. His voice gained Mojo's attention as he stopped what he was doing, still wearing the metal suit, all but the face protection part of it, and the gauntlet gloves. He approached his son.

"I'm just making something… it'll fix that nasty wound my monster did to your arm, too," Mojo claimed, though acting and looking oddly calm, like he had an overwhelming sensation of victory taking over his huge ego. He stood beside Butch, whose forest green eyes glazed over slightly, doing his best to maintain focus and consciousness on the monkey.

"Why do you care? You hate us as much as the puffs, anyway. If you want revenge, why don't you just kill me off," Butch retorted his thoughts, offering himself up to be slaughtered instead of subjected to long strenuous torture. He had to admit one thing on the back of his mind, though, that the puffs probably hated Mojo way less than he did right now. Mojo rubbed his son's head.

"I could never kill any of my children. Even if you have… defected. But we will soon fix that," Mojo hummed. Before he could make any more creepy comments, Butch spat at him, hitting him in the eye, making him jerk back in disgust.

"You're an idiot. You aren't a good dad at all. HIM was our father. You didn't deserve half of what we did for you," Butch exclaimed. Revival or not, he really preferred the more mentally stable person before the Powerpuff Girls put an end to HIM permanently, just one of a many things for the ruffs to forget in their past. The raven haired boy got punched in the face hard enough to draw blood. He slowly blinked before everything went to black again. He was oddly calm. If he died, he could be happy knowing he at least spent the last few months with Brick and Boomer in a better life so to speak.

Brick and Boomer found themselves back at the hospital. The ruff leader was leaning on the door frame to Butch's room, which was now already empty. He felt like an idiot for how easily he fell for their creator's trick. A monster and a distraction, the most hurt being kidnapped, and sadly it was the one he loved the most who had to be taken. He saw Boomer approach after talking to the two conscious guards out of the bunch that had been knocked out.

"Yep. Dad was here, just like we thought…" the blonde boy said, confirming that it was their dad who had come and done this damage.

"Yeah…" Brick puffed bitterly, his mind in an entirely different place right now.

"What do we do now? They said dad had some super armour…" the blue ruff described what he had gathered from the practical interrogations. This was the hardest he had to think in a while. He felt more in charge than the orange haired boy did. Brick was distracted constantly now, but Boomer didn't doubt his judgement. He had not let them down thus far, there was no reason to doubt him now.

"We find that monkey and save Butch… but there are a million places he could be… urrgh!" Brick punched the wall in anger, creating a hole in it. He was losing his mind to his emotions.

"He isn't that smart. If we were villains, where would we go?" Boomer asked. The red eyed boy had his gaze on the floor, not entirely sure. They had not gotten to know the town of Citiesville that well in their time here. They instead just stuck to their own personal area. The two thought as hard as they could on this, but they didn't really know the area that well.

"You!" Brick suddenly shouted to the first guard he could see which as a more old man who was the least injured guard, at worst having a bruise on his head. The blonde ruff just stayed nearby in case he had to pull his brother away.

"This town must have villains. Where are some of their bases?" Brick demanded him to hurry up with an answer.

"W-we had our issues, yeah… but the villains went to Townsville a long time back… we're mostly damaged by monsters only," the security officer explained fearfully, aware that answer was not entirely what he wanted. The guard pulled out a small electronic device and handed it over. It looked like a screen with a small pad on it like a map, but with a GPS built in.

"Th-that's a tracking device… every criminal and newborn baby gets a microchip put in their bracelet while admitted so the alarms go off when they leave the building… this can track them. J-just… please don't hurt me," the old guard requested. He wanted the day to be a normal routine as always but not with his luck.

"There. That's how you get stuff from people," Brick told Boomer, feeling a lot better while going over it. On the screen of the device were an arrangement of digital dots, but nearly all but two were in the hospital right now. This annoyed them, as they knew they will have to split up to find Butch sooner.

"I'll take this one on the east side of town. You can take the west," Boomer insisted. Brick nodded, ready to head off immediately, but he was stopped by his blonde brother.

"But Brick… please don't do anything stupid. Butch wouldn't want you to die for him," he claimed. Brick hesitantly nodded, understanding what he meant. The two flew off through the nearest window, leaving their respective dark red and blue streaks of light behind them as they went in separate directions.


	14. Search

After he had woke back up, Butch could do nothing. He couldn't even move. The straps were tightened. His bandages were removed from his arm, and he could see the tons of stitches in his arm, though by now, the painkilling narcotics had started wearing off and it was getting more and more agonizing by the minute. He saw Mojo come over with a scalpel and some electronic device on a metal tray. He saw the surgical knife touch his stitches. He began to cut them off. As they fell apart, the green boy gritted his teeth in agony. His arm throbbed in pain, wondering what his father was doing. All stitches gone, all that remained was the huge opening in his muscle from where the pole had impaled him.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Butch questioned fearfully as Mojo showed the metallic device. It had a lot of wires dangling from it though it did look very well made for whatever it was meant to do.

"This… is one of four devices I'm going to implant around your body. Once in, you should obey my commands with ease. After those are in, we'll begin on more heavy duty upgrades," Mojo explained. Thus he began attaching wires to parts of his son's muscles. It made him scream in agony. If it was only the first, he dreaded to think where the other three similar electronics were going to go in his body. He felt like he was being more treated like a robot. He didn't like the sound of being converted to a robot. If he got a chance at all, he would rip this stuff out of him.

Brick was flying as fast as he could. He wished he had more energy right now. All he had fuelling him and keeping him going right now was knowing his brother was in danger. He had arrived to the exact destination he had split up from Boomer to check out. From what Brick could see, it was mostly abandoned factories. He was annoyed immediately, knowing it would take a short time to search them all. He wanted to blow them up, but that was too dangerous right now. He landed in front of the first building before forcing his way inside by breaking the door down to begin one of his dozen searches.

The red ruff growled, not seeing anything. It was just an abandoned factory like any other in this town. His plan was if something happened to him, his brother Boomer would come save him. He really wondered how half the town was employed if he kept stumbling into abandoned facilities like this. His thoughts pondered off when he found something lying on the ground. It was a hospital admittance bracelet. It's all familiar name was written on the bracelet.

"He's been here… Butch!" the orange haired boy shouted desperately. The only response he heard was from his own echo. Butch really was here alright. He was ready to start ripping the general area apart. He didn't care for the consequences of doing this. He rubbed his forehead before hearing a loud clank on the metallic floor. His red eyes scanned the abandoned area he was in. From what he could see in, the darkness was nothing but a bunch of shut down equipment, though his head stopped, turning midway when he realized that he had not paid enough attention, realizing that one of the machines was an oversized robot that looked smooth in design and decent in size. He recognized it easily. Its eyes glowed blue in the dark.

"You're the piece of junk my dad was working on months ago. I thought you'd be bigger," Brick spoke. He watched it reel back, seeing no current weapons equipped on it. He was amazed it had been finished since his brother had broken half of it before they left. The metallic behemoth threw a punch his way. He jumped over it, firing his heat vision, blasting it in the head. Those weird glowing blue eyes switched to a red colour. It grabbed his leg, its grip being strong and tight. Brick punched the metal hand, but it hurt his knuckles, making them ache, but it forced it to release Brick. He spun around, kicking it in the head, making it jerk back. Before he could react again, the red ruff got punched hard, being sent flying across the room and slamming on his back to a conveyor belt.

"I am going to rip your head off!" Brick roared, his hands ripping out part of the conveyor belt. He threw it at his opponent, but the robot smacked it aside mid-air before beginning to charge at the young boy. The sound of its overweight footsteps stamping the ground boomed, its arms raised overhead and swung downward. Brick dashed aside, a red streak of light shining behind him. He watched from behind as the robot left huge imprints on the floor from its metallic knuckles. The ruff noticed something, though. An all too familiar injury to one of the robot's legs. He recalled seeing it crash in the wall, because Butch had damaged it, and judging by the size of the dent, not much time had been spent repairing it. Brick decided to try and go all out on the injury.

Brick lunged at the robot from behind. Before it could react, he collided with the dent fists, first hearing the sound of compacted metal. The behemoth robot fell over, having to stop itself with one arm. He grinned knowing, it couldn't do anything now. He flew high up before he stopped near the ceiling, and he fired his heat vision at its back, super heating it. He dove back down with a crushing kick, smashing it to the floor, watching nuts and bolts go flying everywhere with sparks of electricity. Brick was panting, looking at its defeated scraps of his enemy.

"Worthless hunk of junk," the red ruff panted. He was drained, starting to realize he had a new bruise on his face, his bandage being knocked off during the fight. He didn't have time to take a break. Whatever happened to him, he had to just hope Boomer could catch up if he failed. Brick was still angry and the robot alone told him more than well that this area was being guarded for a reason. He began his search to try and find Butch.


	15. Found

Brick had been searching the best he could in the factory, the oversized robot smoking nearby in a heap of scrap after he had smashed it, though it had only been a few minutes and he felt like his panic was rising the longer he took.

"Brick!" He heard a familiar voice. Boomer had found him. The ruff leader assumed it was with news of not finding anything where he went to search, though his red eyes focused on a fluffy black cat in his brothers arms that had a hospital band stuck on its paw.

"I'm guessing you found nothing…?" Brick asked. His brother nodded, though he looked happy to have found a nice cat.

"Yeah. This band belongs to a convict. He stuck it on the cat. Did you find anything here?" Boomer questioned, breaking the band off the cat's paw and putting it down, letting it scurry off, though he got his answer seeing the destroyed robot.

"Dad's somewhere around here. Help me look for some kind of secret door," Brick insisted before he resumed his desperate search. The blonde ruff did notice something underneath the scrap of the robot from the fight, though. He approached it, and using his super strength, he moved most of the non-functioning scrap metal aside. The blue ruff could see a trap door with a handle on it.

"I found something," Boomer said, gaining Brick's undivided attention. He quickly came over, grabbing the handle and prying it from the floor, ripping it out of the hinges and throwing it aside. The doorway started with a ladder that led down into darkness. He didn't care if he had to burn out every drop of energy trying to break in right now.

"Uh, Brick can I ask something… in case this goes wrong?" Boomer requested while they began to scale down the ladder having had something in the back of his mind for a while now ever since Butch and Brick had announced their love for each other. He was fine with it, but he had lingering thoughts.

"Yeah, anything," Brick didn't mind, understanding his worries that one of them might be in danger. Their father was a man of many tricks, even if they were pathetically weak, they still had a high chance of being lethal.

"If you two, y'know… love each other… what does this mean for me?" the blonde boy tried to inquire what this made him in the eyes of his brothers. If the two of them loved each other, was he even considered much more? Though he was aware that the ruff leader cared about him just as much. The red capped boy thought for a second as they reached the bottom, their feet clanking onto a metallic floor of some kind of basement level for alternative storage of the factory.

"I've taken punches, lasers and a lot of other pain for you and Butch. Dad even talked about kicking you out way before Butch. I know it's awkward and I'm glad you supported us. I may love him, but I care about you both just as much… and trust me on this, I would throw even my life away just to protect you like I would for him," Brick explained. No ruff left behind was his motto. He had spent time fighting with Mojo privately about Boomer's reliability, and thankfully he had improved a lot, which had ended most of the arguments, but he didn't care now that that was in the past.

"Thanks, Brick…" Boomer could only say, a bit awestruck by that heartfelt reply. They were wandering through the darkened halls. They had good vision in the dark by now, though they came to a halt when they began to reach the end of the hallway, an open doorway in front of them. They heard groaning and a voice that made the orange haired boy's heart calm down.

"You better remove that from my arm, or when I get my energy back, I will make sure you don't survive!" Butch's voice flew from out the door. He sounded angry, but afraid. Brick and Boomer were happy to know he was safe, but inside, Mojo was preparing more tools. The machine implanted in the green ruffs arm was mostly done.

"I know, and don't worry. This little device has a lot of possibilities to it," Mojo grinned, pulling out a remote that had five settings on it, and hitting the second button, the device had a light appear on it, sending out a light shocking pain through his muscle. The raven haired boy let out a scream of agony, feeling his muscles coursing with pure electricity. Nothing could stop this torture. His energy drained out before he knew it, and the device was turned off. He was lying there, panting, his eyes looking around in panic, not sure what had turned it off.

"I can't wait anymore! We're going in!" Brick growled, darting into the room, leaving a red streak of light behind him. Mojo barely had time to react before he got tackled and slammed into the wall, Boomer following inside quickly and knocking the remote aside so he wouldn't be tempted to reach for it.

"Brick! Boomer!" Butch happily yelled, relieved that his torture would soon be over.

"Oh, man, you look awful…" Boomer admitted while trying to unstrap him from the table.

"How did you find us?" Mojo demanded in anger before he got punched in the face. Brick was not sure what his creator was doing, but he wasn't going to answer either way. Butch stood up, though weakly. He was drained, and he didn't even want to risk ripping out the mechanical device now out of worry that he would do even worse damage to his arm. The Rowdyruff Boys looked at their father, all in anger.

"What should we do with him?"


	16. The end

Brick was tense, having his grip firmly on Mojo's cape. The monkey made a big mistake of disrobing most of that metal armour he had used to subdue the green ruff in the first place. Boomer had to help Butch stand. The practical torture to his open wound had been agonizing. The two stared at their leader, Brick, who didn't know what to do. His mind and emotions were racing far too fast for them to keep up with one another. He had to go with his gut on this one. He took in a deep breath before pulling back and punching his father in the face hard enough to knock out a tooth. Mojo wasn't even able to get a word out before he felt another punch hit him, and another, and another. Brick was wailing on him in rage. After a few more strong hits, he had to stop, trying to catch his breath. His arm hurt his father's face, heavily bruised and damaged.

"I-I created you! You three should be thankful-hurk!" Mojo gagged, feeling the red ruff's hands fasten around his throat, pushing him hard against the wall. He looked long into his orange haired son's angry red eyes, seeing the blaze of hatred that had been escalated for far too long without relief. The monkey looked to his other sons. Butch looked away toward the wooden locket, dangling around his neck, while he was still leaning on Boomer.

"If Brick doesn't do this to you, you'll hurt us again. You've done too much this time…" Butch said, not seeing any reason to stop his love's rage. If the smart monkey survived and went to jail, he would just bail out again, and they would be in even more danger each break out.

"You weren't worth any of our time…" Boomer agreed. He watched as Brick turned his head toward the two. He saw his green boyfriend's heavily bruised arm, the device in his wound that would need to be dealt with at the hospital once again.

"You two get out… now," Brick insisted. They wanted to protest, but Butch was too drained to argue. The blonde ruff was aware why he wanted them gone. The boy in blue assisted his brother in leaving the room to get back to the upper area of the factory. Mojo was feeling slightly faint from being deprived of oxygen for so long.

"I'm glad you created us. You gave us things to do for fun. And HIM gave us a second chance at life that we've been wasting on you... but I have some people now that I care for too much to let anything get away with harming them. I promised I'd protect them both. The worst part about this though for our family… is that I'm enjoying this," Brick exclaimed, enjoying the moment choking the life out of Mojo. He was beginning to feel faint, his super strength crushing his wind pipe, and after a few seconds and futile kicks, all movement ceased.

Butch and Boomer were above ground. The blonde ruff was doing his best to try and treat his sibling. He had just ripped out the majority of the electronic device in his arm muscle, but he couldn't remove all the wires without hurting him badly and probably tearing off his muscles. They would have to admit him to the hospital again no matter what. They started hearing the sounds of metal clanking from the ladder they had climbed up. They saw Brick come up looking blank faced.

"Brick?" Butch stood up. He had regained some energy, but not much. There was an awkward silence as the ruff leader approached him, wrapping his arms around him immediately, his head nuzzling against his.

"He's gone… he's finished…" he muttered. Boomer felt mixed emotions, happiness and sadness, but knowing the decision had been made, no matter what he said now wouldn't matter.

"I-I'm sorry you did all this for me…" Butch apologized while his brother took the wooden locket off from around his neck and slid it back around his own.

"It was worth it. You're still breathing, and everything can go back to normal. Come on, let's get you back to the hospital," Brick insisted they should head to the hospital again. Damaged or not it was the best medical treatment in Citiesville. Butch was glad to know his boyfriend cared that much.

"What should we do with the body?" Boomer chimed, not sure if they should give their father a proper burial. Their leader thought for a second, patting his blue sibling on the back before he walked over, grabbing the cover to the lower area and slamming it back over the access to the ladder, using his heat vision to weld it shut.

"I want it to stay in the past," he decided for them. He came over and picked Butch up in his arms, aware he wouldn't be able to fly with his low energy. They didn't protest his decisions. They had to put their trust in him. It was the best way for survival, to trust one another, even if they had different bonds with one another. They flew off to the sky, leaving a dark red and blue streak of light behind them.

While they flew, Butch was snug in Brick's arms against his chest. He heard his rapidly beating heart, and saw the wooden locket dangling around his neck, partially damaged from all it had survived thus far. He looked to Boomer who was focused on going the right way. The raven haired boy had a smile, thinking back to months ago. If Boomer hadn't persisted that he gave their leader the gift, he wouldn't have been led on this path to confess his feelings. He would never have admitted it to Brick, and have been cowardly about it. He never knew how much chaos and happiness a gift could simultaneously cause for them.

"I love you, Brick…" Butch finally kissed him, seeing a bright smile beam from him in return. He loved to return the affection if he didn't need to focus on flying high in the sky.

"I love you too, Butch," Brick hummed, feeling a lot of stress fly off his shoulders, ready to get him better so they could get back to trying to rebuild their lives without either of their fathers in the picture. The three of them had to work together and hard to do it, but with strong faith in one another, they knew they would get by.

**The end...**

**Authors note: I hope you all enjoyed this fic, I thank you all for the support.**


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